


Battle Strategy

by Clocksmith



Category: Crash Bandicoot (Video Games)
Genre: Awkward Sexual Situations, Emotional Manipulation, F/F, Flirting, It Fails Horribly, Neck Kissing, Nina Tries to Be Manipulative, evil flirting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-23
Updated: 2020-07-23
Packaged: 2021-03-04 19:39:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,162
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25471765
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Clocksmith/pseuds/Clocksmith
Summary: Getting under the skin of your enemy was one facet of battle that Nina could definitely get behind, and what better method was there than flirting with the bandicoot you were actively trying to crush under a giant robot scorpion?
Relationships: Coco Bandicoot/Nina Cortex
Kudos: 25





	Battle Strategy

**Author's Note:**

> This piece was commissioned by jacobgross555 on fiverr and I had an absolute blast working on it! If you're interested in a commission yourself, you'll find me hanging around at www.fiverr.com/eerieclocksmith/write-the-thing-if-you-want-the-thing

Throwing a punch was something that came easily to Nina Cortex. Her hands were optimised for strenuous activity, designed specifically for heavy lifting and grappling targets from long distances. They were tools, ultimately.

But plenty of tools could be utilised as a weapon.

Few things could interrupt the sheer power in her fingers when she closed them, whether Nina wanted to or not. Letting out a punch, or even pulling an enemy in from afar was so simple an action to her that it might as well have been second nature. Not that Nina actively sought to take part in battle herself. Why bother when she could have a semi-competent lackey to do it for her?

But those times when she absolutely had to get her hands dirty? She kicked several kinds of ass.

Bandicoot ass, especially.

Strength was only as good as your strategy, however. If the last two solo encounters with Coco and Crash were any indication, Nina was sorely lacking in innovation when it came to her fighting style. Given her usual reliance on machinery and disposable underlings, it was an unwanted truth, but not a complete surprise to her.

Now that she was aware of that fact, she could improve. And Nina had the perfect solution in mind. Why try and defeat her opponents with a physical confrontation when she could excel in _mental dominance_ instead.

As smart as Coco Bandicoot was – and Nina would be remiss if she did not admit at least that much about the mutant – the marsupial had still spent most of her sapient life in the Wumpa Jungles. She was adept with technology, sure. She could apparently work wonders with a single pink laptop and a standard store-bought phone. But she _wasn’t_ a social creature. She had not dealt with people in a casual setting.

Whereas Nina had spent far too many years dealing with the bottom of the barrel that society had to offer. She still did, when she was actually required to attend Evil Public School.

Children could be exceedingly cruel; it was the one redeeming feature at Nina’s school. If nothing else, her peers had taught her the inner workings of teenage psychology: what makes them tick; who was the most easily influenced by gossip; who would take the most offense to critique on their latest travesty of an outfit; who could be namedropped to gain the most attention? Which rightly placed words would do the most damage and give the best results?

Nina Cortex enjoyed getting results. Her strength was one thing, but her mind? That was her greatest weapon. And the mind contained so much more than scientific principles and ideas. It contained the very tools she needed to bend anyone she wanted around her little finger.

Or throw them off their game.

Nina planned to do exactly that.

Coco, for as little as she left the islands, still fell into the same clichés that infested every school. Coco’s most obvious stereotypical classification was as a computer geek; she spent much of her free time messing around with computers, playing videogames or experimenting with minor machines. Yet, she also cared about her appearance. Not to the extent of the fake bimbos that ruled the upper echelons of Nina’s school, but enough that an insult or two was likely to get under her skin. She was a casual girl, content with her own style but still willing to go the extra mile if it made her _prettier_ than she already was.

On their own, those two factors could be abused in a number of ways. But together they created a delightfully pathetic cocktail: a socially inexperienced girl with her head stuck in the internet and a desire to look attractive.

Nina would use that.

A lot of young women were self-conscious. If that hadn’t been the result of hours of research, it would have been just as evident to anyone that spent more than five minutes in any modern, teenager infested setting. Girls vying for the attention of the latest _stud muffin_ of their dreams, crawling over each other in an attempt to prove that they had the best shake in their tailfeathers.

Not that Nina was self-conscious, of course. Or interested in any sort of shaking. She was better than that.

Above it, even.

It wasn’t like the men were much better, mind you. Nina didn’t have time for men. She wouldn’t even consider giving that time if they paid her. Not after the gaggle of meat-headed morons she’d been exposed to at Evil Public School. Not a single one of them held a light to her uncle, or even likes of Brio or N. Gin and they were all beneath Nina’s level as it was.

She had no time for them. For _anyone_ at her school. Time was a precious resource.

As such, Nina had recently spent much of hers dealing with the greatest issue that plagued her life: Coco Bandicoot.

“You still don’t get it, do you?” Coco asked. She stood tall, of foot firmly on the underbelly of what had once been a moderately competent scorpionbot, the various exposed extremities sizzling with errant charges of dying electricity. “Whatever you build, whatever crackpot scheme you get into your head. I. Will. Take. You. _Down_.”

The hulking thing had taken around three hours to build, including breakfast and two short snack breaks. Nine feet tall and eleven long with hydraulic pincers, eight load-bearing legs with just enough realism to topple even the hardiest arachnophobe and a versatile stinger that could shoot three separate blasts of energy. One made from charged plasma, another infused with same material that her uncle stored in nitro crates. One that Coco could kick back at the robot, obviously.

It had to be beatable, if today was going to go as Nina planned.

And now she had the perfect in.

Nina eyed Coco’s body, from the emerald green of her eyes to the faded pink of her shoes. “You’ll take me down?” she scoffed.

Coco leapt down effortlessly from the smouldering wreck that was, or had been Nina’s robot, her stance readying for something more strenuous than a simple battle of wits.

“Always.”

Nina simply stepped towards her, a coy smile slithering onto her lips. “I look forward to it.”

Her response gave Coco pause, if only for the briefest second. “What, because you like a challenge?”

“Or maybe I like it when you get physical with me.”

As firm as the bandicoot’s stance had been, Coco now faltered. Her posture slackened and her gaze became something more dubious as her eyes kept trained on Nina. Searching for a sly deception, no doubt.

Nina hoped she was.

“… Excuse me?”

“I think you know perfectly well what I’m talking about, Bandicoot.” Nina stated. She just about managed to keep a dirty smirk in check.

Or maybe she would be better letting it roam free?

“I mean, who wouldn’t want to be pinned down by a beautiful woman?” Nina had never called Coco a woman, nor anything close to beautiful. She usually wouldn’t lower herself. In this moment though, they felt a fitting set of ‘compliments’. “Especially one who can roundhouse kick a giant robot in the face.”

“You _really_ want me to kick you in the face that bad?”

Yes, because that was definitely what Nina was trying to get at. Was Nina not doing it right? “Obviously not.” No, of course she was. Coco was just an idiot. And a _dense_ idiot, at that. “But I wouldn’t say no to the part where you pin me down to the ground.”

Anything remaining that remotely resembled a battle stopped in its tracks. The cards were well and truly on the table, even for someone as inept as Coco Bandicoot. The pause was brief in reality, but it felt slow as treacle as the seconds trickled by. If Nina ever had the prime opportunity to surprise-punch Coco right in the face, it was now.

“You want me to… pin you down?” Coco asked, bewildered.

But Nina drew in closer. If she was going to do this, she had to play the long game. She had to go in strong, and she had to go in _hard._

“Is that you asking for permission, _sweetie?_ ”

Coco couldn’t step back, not with the crumpled wreck of hydraulics and steel behind her. She could have circled around. She could have _jumped_ back over the robot and made a run for it. She could have done a whole manner of things, in her panic.

But she didn’t, because Nina knew she wouldn’t. Coco didn’t have it in her to run away from this. And she was right.

Coco Bandicoot moved forward instead.

“I don’t need to ask for permission.”

Quicker than Nina could respond, a foot slipped around the back of her heel and her entire leg fell from under her. Her back hit the dry dirt, the sudden jolt to her system a surprise in itself.

But then Coco Bandicoot bent down, her knees falling to either side of the very top of Nina’s right thigh.

“I can take what I want. Like you said; I’m a woman.” Then her hands were at either side of Nina’s head, the few uncontained locks of Coco’s hair falling into Nina’s vision like cascading gold. “… Or maybe you’d prefer me to be an animal.”

Coco… knew. She knew Nina’s plan. She _had_ to know, surely? Because this… whatever this was, it wasn’t real. It was a ploy. As big a ploy as Nina had planned to enact herself.

If Coco wanted to play Nina at her new game, Nina would _thrash_ her at it. “I–“

But Coco got in there first.

“Because I can be wild,” Coco interrupted. She leaned in closer, so close that Nina could smell the nature in her fur. “Did you know that bandicoots are opportunistic hunters?” Nina felt the heat in her breath. “We survive on fruits, but we take down prey when we see an easy kill.”

The breath in Nina’s throat caught, refusing to leave. She swallowed nothing, hard. “I-I’m not _easy_ ,” she managed. Just.

“No, you’re not,” Coco agreed. Her lips drifted down then, whispering into the sensitive skin of Nina’s ear. “But I’ve already got you where I want you. What’s stopping me from taking a taste.”

This… no. No! This was _not_ the plan. Nina Cortex did not lose, not like this. “A t-taste of what?”

But her arms wouldn’t move. Words caught at the back of her throat behind what little breath she had left, and logical thought couldn’t escape the hazy confines of her brain. It couldn’t contend with the feeling of quick breathes against her neck. Of hushed whispers in her ear.

She simply repeated, “you know perfectly well what I’m talking about, Cortex,” back at Nina. Playing the scientists own hand against her.

No. No, this wasn’t how it was meant to go. “You _wouldn’t_.” Of course, Coco wouldn’t. Coco wasn’t–

The heat against Nina’s neck grew fiercer as lips set gently against her skin. A blush raged on her cheeks as the slightest graze of a tongue registered in her heightened senses. “Maybe if you do as your told like a good little scientist, you’ll find out.” Then a second time, firmer.

No.

No. _No_. “I-I’m…” Words, Nina. Use your fucking words. For all the thought that had gone into this game, Nina’s mind fell back onto old habits. “You might be an animal, but I’m not.” Insults were easier. In desperation, they required less thought to Nina, less effort.

“I might be the animal. But I think you quite like the idea of being my little pet.” Coco sucked gently at Nina’s skin, a moistness gathering there than Nina knew would stain her skin with little bruises. “Though I think my little evil genius is smart enough to realise that she’s had a bit too much stimulation today already.”

“I-I don’t know what you’re–“

“Yes, you do,” Coco stated firmly, planting the briefest kiss on the n of Nina’s forehead.

And then Coco got up, jumping back to her feet. She stood over Nina, proud like some predator overlooking the first prey of many

“So, play _nice_ , Nina,” she finished, something not unlike a threat in her voice, though laced with something… darker. Sultrier. “If you do, you might get a treat next time I see you.” Something that was negated complete by the mischievous wink she offered before turning her back on Nina entirely.

And then she was gone, spun on her heel as if the conversation had been so mundane that it did not even warrant a goodbye.

Maybe it hadn’t. Maybe there was something more to it than Nina had come to understand. It tugged at her curiosity, at the pit of her stomach. Nina wasn’t sure which pulled her more, but she knew one thing.

She needed this conversation to happen again.


End file.
